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Feminist stock photos

Stock photos—which come from image databases and are often used in advertisements or magazine articles—can be painfully outdated and limited. You'll find lots of photos of women cleaning their houses and laughing alone with salad. If you search for "women" and "business," you might find a photo of a woman climbing a ladder with a briefcase and shoulder pads. The photos often feel like caricatures.

Sheryl Sandberg's organization, Lean In, wanted to change that, so she's working with Getty Images to add thousands of new photos to their image database—including photos of women running meetings, girls at computers and men with their kids. She wants to represent women and families in more empowering ways and stop perpetuating gender stereotypes, according to the New York Times.

How fantastic is that? I love the photos above, and here are four more...That last one rings true to me:)

So happy to see this collection from the Lean In organization. I work for a firm that does research for c-level executives on how they can better run their business. I'm in the IT research practice doing editorial work--writing blog posts, working on our quarterly magazine, that kind of thing. While reviewing image selections for the last issue, I noted that every single stock photos was of a group of old white men sitting around a conference table(and one woman). The designer and the project manager were probably laughing at me, but I basically refused to look at anything else until we got some options with more diversity. I've been sending examples from this collection around the office ever since it came out to help us all do better!

The last picture speaks to me as well. My husband and I both work full-time and he's usually the one that cooks dinner at night for the family. We live in a world now where the majority of men and women both work full-time so household chores should be divided.

Love this! Stock photos are the sort of subtle, unintentionally offensive things that help shape the way we see our world. I actually L'dOL at the women eating salad. I didn't expect there to be so many! Also, I wonder why so many of these new stock photos are of women staring at computers. I especially love the one of the man braiding the girl's hair. Feels more like art to me than advertising :)

I see stock photos that are "feminist" all the time... I even used some for my old job. I am actually quite surprised that you say stock photos are limited and horribly outdated. Not saying you're wrong... just find it interesting. Sounds like this organization has found their niche! Good for them.

Thanks for sharing! I hadn't seen these yet and they're lovely. The last one speaks to me also, Joanna. My husband and I don't have children yet, but with both of us working full time and me trying blog in the evenings, our nights often consist of me staring at the screen and him doing things around our apartment.

And laurasaurus, I totally agree! That picture definitely looks like art to me. I love seeing Dads taking an active role in their daughters lives... even in stock photos. :)

My friends and I were just chatting about this yesterday when one of them posted this article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/02/25/recline-dont-lean-in-why-i-hate-sheryl-sandberg/?hpid=z4I have had such a hard time figuring out if I want to "lean out" or "lean in" while I'm raising my children, but I've decided that I want to do both and just need to figure out how to make it work!

Ive personally encountered the issue of looking for stock photos of women for Advertising projects, especially in the business setting, and its been a huge issue! They were all so outdated and did a terrible job portraying the modern woman. Thanks for the exposure on this issue!

The salad thing is killing me! She's clearly a loony...but a healthy one. As a scientist, former tomboy and mom of a spit fire 5 year old girl, I think any improvement in the female imagery we dish out is a good thing. We should be starting young too, being cognizant about the subtle effects of the pink army and the narrow expectations that society foists on girls. Thanks for posting this, Joanna!

I LOVE these! I am getting married soon and will be the main breadwinner in our household. It's heartbreaking to hear the negativity my fiance and I receive from family and strangers alike when they learn this. It's nice to see people pushing for the acceptance of breaking these societal traditions!

this is great! i have mixed feelings about "lean in" and the position of privilege i think it assumes women have to do so (telling poor minority women they need to lean in is somewhat insulting, and why are we placing the blame on ourselves to rise to the top of the pyramid, why can't we try to change the flawed patriarchal corporate structure instead? but that's another story...) ANYWAY, anytime we can get more diverse images out there is a good thing. thank you for sharing!

Love this photos so much. A friend posted them on Facebook a few weeks ago and from the way I was raised, it exemplifies the women I've grown up around. Strong, professional, and motherly just the same.

Next step, television commercials that don't continue to depict families from the 1950's.

That's great! I'm a female surgeon and it's an uphill battle. That photo of the female doctor made me think of that. Every time I walk into a patient's room, it's "Oh the nurse is here!" all over again.

It's a great idea that feminist photographs are getting an update, but why do most of them feature the woman or family huddling around a computer or a tablet? In Virginia Woolf's time the breakthrough in feminism was getting your own apartment, and in the 70's wave it was equality in work opportunities and wages. Those ideas are outdated now, as you mentioned.

The computer and the Internet is a powerful, liberating tool (hence I'm using it to type this comment two continents away) but I find it disturbing how families - children and parents - seem to be looking in one direction rather than engaging with each other. Replace the images with a TV and these pictures won't be so groundbreaking.

I like how these pictures celebrate having kids and a family though, rather than the old stereotype of 'career over family'. But more books and nature, please!

These are great! Funny enough, I work for a custom t-shirt design company and our website has a huge database of clipart that people can use to design their t-shirts. I was recently assigned to a project to create a lot of clipart portraying female professionals so that they could outweigh the numbers of outdated housewifey and sexy woman clipart that was there before!

These are fantastic. And I love that this collection is making the rounds in articles lately... very hopeful! You always know how to nail down awesome stuff, Joanna (including, but not limited to, women laughing while eating salad alone).

My husband is an exec. at Getty Images. Getty is getting an AMAZING response to these images! So glad that my hubby works for such a great, progressive company. The fact that women doing things other than 'laughing with their salad' is considered progressive is sad in itself, but change is happening!

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The image that I love the most is actually the one of the man braiding hair.

Society's changing view of women is really only half of the gender equality equation. We also need to allow men, without stigma, to play roles that are traditionally thought of as women's jobs or tasks.

Love this and also love this is what a scientist looks like. I remember once seeing a series where kids drew what they thought a scientist looked like and it was most often a male in a lab coat and glasses. Hopefully this picture is diversifying.

Feel very lucky to live near Sheryl Sandberg and having had the chance to hear her speak at a private book reading. She is one amazing women. I love what Lean In is doing to change our stereotypes. These stock images are just one of the many ways men and women, young and old perseverate these messages to boys and girls. We are fortunate to have her in our community and school.

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